The present invention relates to improvements in concrete block molding machines, and particularly to improvements for minimizing sound emissions, reducing safety hazards, and for obtaining optimum performance from the machine.
Among the defects inherent in concrete block forming machines of the type found in the prior art, is their inadequacy to provide protection to the operators and other personnel in the vicinity from excessive noise and other hazards caused by the movable components of the machines. Efforts have been made to overcome these defects by constructing sound insulated enclosures adapted to enclose the existing types of concrete block machines, but these efforts have proved to be unsatisfactory.
The prior block machines are relatively large and have many movable components such as a moldbox arranged to be vibrated, a feed drawer assembly, a compacting and sizing head assembly, a strip mechanism, a pallet hopper and associated pallet feed mechanism, ejector means for removing a pallet loaded with concrete block, and the like. Further, these machines are frequently used in a plant as part of a continuous block forming and curing system. Under these circumstances, efforts merely to overcome the inadequacies of the prior art by placing sound insulated enclosures around the machines results in large, unwieldly structures which are inefficient from the space standpoint, interfere with normal operations, are costly, and are undesirable for numerous other obvious reasons.